The fish names
Short words, mostly hiragana — the heart of the menu.
Notice how short they are — two or three kana each. Salmon is one of the few in katakana (サーモン), because it came in as a loanword; the native fish keep hiragana. The same names show up on a wider Japanese menu too.
Tuna, by fattiness
The one fish with its own little vocabulary.
とろ (toro) is the prized fatty belly; 中 (chū, medium) and 大 (ō, large) tell you how rich — and how pricey. 大とろ is the splurge.
Sushi shop words
The terms around the fish — some are insider lingo.
軍艦 (gunkan, "battleship") is a seaweed-wrapped cup for loose toppings like うに and いくら. Two counter-only words: ガリ (the pickled ginger) and あがり (the sushi-shop word for green tea).
Price and ordering
At 回転寿司 (kaiten-zushi, conveyor belt), price is set by plate (皿, sara) color — a chart at your seat maps each color to a price, and your plates are counted at the end. Sushi is counted in 一貫 (ikkan, "one piece"). The one warning sign: 時価 (jika, market price) means no fixed price — ask first.
Read the next plate yourself
Learn the hiragana the fish names are built from, paste a menu item into the converter, or point the app at the touch-screen menu and read it live — even offline at a counter with no signal.
Ready when you are
Order the fish you wanted.
Kanapow turns any Japanese word into kana with tap-to-hear pronunciation, so fish names, menus, and signs all become readable. Free on iPhone, and the Japan Trip mode works fully offline.
Download on the App StoreReading a sushi menu FAQ
How do you read fish names on a sushi menu?
Most are short hiragana or katakana words you can sound out: まぐろ (maguro, tuna), サーモン (sāmon, salmon), えび (ebi, shrimp), たまご (tamago, egg), いか (ika, squid). A sushi menu reuses the same 20–30 names, so a little reading goes a long way.
What's the difference between maguro, chūtoro, and ōtoro?
They're cuts of tuna by fattiness. まぐろ (maguro) is lean red tuna, 中とろ (chūtoro) is medium-fatty belly, and 大とろ (ōtoro) is the richest, most marbled — and most expensive — cut. Toro (とろ) means the fatty belly.
What does 時価 mean on a sushi menu?
時価 (jika) means "market price" — the item has no fixed price and costs whatever the day's market sets. It's common for premium or seasonal fish at counter sushi, so ask before ordering if budget matters.
How does conveyor-belt sushi pricing work?
At 回転寿司 (kaiten-zushi), price is usually set by plate (皿, sara) color — each color is a price tier shown on a chart at your seat. You stack the plates and they're counted at the end. Many places now use a touch-screen order alongside the belt.